In all the years since 1997 my wife and I were aware of the existence of this series, but for whatever reason never got around to watching it. About six months ago we decided to start, and have been delighted with the episodes: the production values, the clever plots, the general setting in the English world of smallish villages, the wonderful acting, the charming milieu. We have worked our way up to season 10, concentrating on the episodes that have the best rating here.
For whatever reason we decided to give this one a try. What a mistake! From the opening horrific scene, which turns out to be part of a movie being filmed, we were put off by violence and unpleasantness. I have never seen so many unpleasant characters in one 90 minute program. There are frequent abrupt scene changes, frequent scowling interchanges between unsavory personalities, wimps, and bullies.
The basic plot element of a working guillotine being used on a movie set seems dubious at best. There is a secondary plot of unpleasant people scowling at each other pursuing a fake robbery.
Symptomatic of the chaos, near the end when Barnaby and Jones are in their office thinking over the likely suspects, suddenly an attractive young female officer appears to help the discussion. Who is this?? She has about thirty seconds of screen time and some good dialog before disappearing back to oblivion. WTF?
Shame on the producers and writers. What were they thinking?
For whatever reason we decided to give this one a try. What a mistake! From the opening horrific scene, which turns out to be part of a movie being filmed, we were put off by violence and unpleasantness. I have never seen so many unpleasant characters in one 90 minute program. There are frequent abrupt scene changes, frequent scowling interchanges between unsavory personalities, wimps, and bullies.
The basic plot element of a working guillotine being used on a movie set seems dubious at best. There is a secondary plot of unpleasant people scowling at each other pursuing a fake robbery.
Symptomatic of the chaos, near the end when Barnaby and Jones are in their office thinking over the likely suspects, suddenly an attractive young female officer appears to help the discussion. Who is this?? She has about thirty seconds of screen time and some good dialog before disappearing back to oblivion. WTF?
Shame on the producers and writers. What were they thinking?